CAN WASHINGTON UNSTICK ITSELF? “Carrie Budoff Brown and Jake Sherman: “A lull in the deadline-driven budget battles could soon give way to a fresh round of fiscal crises — from rising public pressure to lift the sequester to a looming summer deadline to increase the debt limit. If the president is to have any hope of resolving either fight to his liking, he’ll need more revenue. But Republicans won’t even consider it unless entitlement reforms are on the table. So after more than two months in hiding, talk of a grand bargain has suddenly resurfaced ... Obama is doing things he’s never done — like dine out this week with a dozen Republican senators at a meal in which they talked fiscal issues, invite House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to the White House for lunch ... There isn’t any irrational exuberance in the White House that a big deal is back within reach, one senior administration official said, but changing circumstances have given the president some hope.

“‘There is an increased focus on engagement because of the opportunity the circumstances provide,’ White House press secretary Jay Carney said. ‘He is trying to make something good out of a bad situation. We don’t have a looming deadline.’ ... Republican and Democrats ... agree on the ... general outlines of what [a bargain] should entail — tax reform, entitlement changes and spending cuts ... House Republican leaders think they’ve checked two of the three boxes of a grand bargain: first, the Jan. 1 tax increases; second, the spending cuts via the sequester. Now, in their view, all that’s left is entitlement reform. ... White House officials began privately acknowledging several weeks ago that the president would have to return to a big deal if he hoped to wring any more revenue out of Congress.” http://politi.co/X27V1D

--HOUSE GOP MINDMELD: “The outreach from the president is a positive development and long overdue. But ... the abrupt change from calling out Republicans last week to dining with them this week is an admission that the White House made a strategic miscalculation, not just on the sequester, but on the fiscal cliff. Instead of reaching agreement on a fair deficit reduction package in December, the White House chose to pick a fight and get a hollow 'win.' Now Republicans have leverage, and the focus is squarely on spending. The sequester is going to remain in effect until the White House and Congress agree on better spending cuts and reforms that put us on the path to a balanced budget within 10 years.”

--VIETOR’S VIEW -- Reuters’ Steve Holland, “Analysis: Obama's shift to schmooze offensive reflects political reality”: “White House aides say the socializing came about because Obama felt there had been a break in the crisis atmosphere ... [R]eporters [had been] once again pestering the president and his spokesman about why ... he doesn't reach out more to his opponents. ... ‘There is this false narrative that pops up every six months where people assume that the president could just invite John Boehner over and open a magnum of Merlot and they would sort everything out. It just doesn't work that way,’ said Tommy Vietor, a Democratic strategist who recently left the White House. ‘All the guy wants is a Republican leader that he can have a reasonable conversation with.” http://reut.rs/YgEwuw

--THE RIGHT RESISTS – WSJ lead editorial, “Obama's Not So Grand Offer: His budget details show how little reform he is really proposing”: “Obama is attempting to revive political appetites for a grand budget bargain ... Maybe he's finding that berating [Republicans] in public as moral cretins doesn't inspire trust. ... [B]ut ... the deal he's offering ... is neither grand nor a bargain. ... [H]e is proposing to ratify the fiscal status quo with only token spending cuts and no major entitlement reform and selling it as the gift of the century. If trimming $930 billion from the $46 trillion 10-year budget sounds less than impressive when Washington is running an annual $845 billion deficit despite a 17% surge in revenue this year, the details are even less of a concession.” Free in Google by pasting the headline http://on.wsj.com/10gdaaY

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, to SEAN HANNITY on Fox News, re SEN. RAND PAUL filibuster (via Kevin Cirilli): “It was genius. ... I would call it a stunt except for the fact that he was entirely sincere and he was entirely right. ... Given the fact there’s not a large constituency that would oppose him on that, the choice of the issue was extremely smart.”

--NEVER MIND – Bloomberg’s Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Laura Litvan and Greg Stohr: “Obama, facing a social media-fueled outcry sparked by Paul's filibuster -- the senator inspired a #StandWithRand hashtag that quickly trended on Twitter -- decided to fill in one of the many blanks in his drone policy. ‘The president has not and would not use drone strikes against American citizens on American soil,’ spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.”

--HOW IT’S PLAYING: N.Y. Times A1, “Senate Filibuster Scrambles Both Left and Right” ... L.A. Times A1, “DRONE DEBATE OPENS A GOP DIVIDE: The White House gives the program’s foes some assurances after Republicans’ rare dispute over defense.”

TOP TALKER – FACEBOOK’S NEW-LOOK NEWS FEED: Bigger pictures, story previews – Facebook release: “We've completely rebuilt each story to be much more vibrant and colorful and highlight the content that your friends are sharing. Photos, news articles, maps and events all look brighter ... [W]e're introducing several new feeds ... All Friends -- a feed that shows you everything your friends are sharing ... Photos -- a feed with nothing but photos from your friends and the Pages you like ... Music -- a feed with posts about the music you listen to ... Following -- a feed with the latest news from the Pages you like and the people you follow. ... We'll be rolling out the new design slowly over the coming weeks on web and mobile. If you'd like to get it early, visit www.facebook.com/newsfeed and add yourself to the waiting list. These design updates will be available on your iPhone and iPad in the coming weeks and to Android soon after.” YouTube video, “Behind the News Feed Redesign”http://bit.ly/XZPvZT

--WSJ B4, “Facebook Unveils Changes to Its News Feed,” by Evelyn M. Rusli in Menlo Park, Calif.: “The revamp reflects a big push to prod users to spend more time on the site and curry favor with brands hoping to be noticed by Facebook's users. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, during a briefing at Facebook's headquarters here Thursday, repeatedly referred to the new design as the foundation for building the ‘best personalized newspaper.’ ... As part of the redesign, friends' photos will now appear larger and shared articles will include bigger images, text and the logos of publishers. For location check-ins, Facebook will feature a large map of destinations. For posts about business, users will see their cover pages and pictures of friends who have ‘liked’ the business.” http://on.wsj.com/16dwrOw

**A message from the Coalition for Medicare Choices: Seniors in Medicare Advantage will face an average of $50-$90 per month in higher costs and benefit cuts next year if the new Medicare Advantage cuts proposed by CMS go into effect. Take action now to stop the new cuts. Learn more at: www.medicarechoices.org **

FIRST LOOK -- NRSC email out later today tries to recruit Ashley Judd to run against Mitch McConnell: “[H]ow can a person who has said ‘Tennessee is home,’ that San Francisco is ‘my American city home’ and that she ‘winters in Scotland’ run for Senate in Kentucky? ... We need you to help get Ashley on the ballot, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you that Judd has grown accustomed to living a certain lifestyle, and that lifestyle ain't cheap. ... Her home – in Tennessee – has a 30 car garage chalk [sic] full of Ferraris. If you could donate $10,000, $25,000 or $50,000 we can start to piece together a down payment for a house that provides Judd all the amenities that she has grown accustomed to as she jets between Hollywood, Scotland, San Francisco and Tennessee.” See the email. http://bit.ly/Xv2Mx9

PICKING THE POPE – WashPost Style section splash, “The chosen papal-razzi: Amid controversy and leaks, ‘Vaticanisti’ reporters become part of the story,” by Jason Horowitz in Vatican City: “Andrea Tornielli, ... who writes for La Stampa and its church Web site, Vatican Insider, is considered the dean of the ‘Vaticanisti,’ the curious class of reporters, historians and gadflies who interpret for laypeople the shadows on the Vatican walls. As the Catholic Church has begun the process to elect its next pope, these often publicly devout, if privately irreverent, men and women act as sound-bite-ready Sherpas for the about 5,000 accredited journalists who have flooded into Rome to cover the selection story. .. At their worst, they are emblematic of conspiracy-obsessed Italian journalism, using thin and sometimes imagined sourcing ... Pope John Paul II’s decline in health, followed by the interesting but more esoteric story of Benedict, resulted in a drop-off in reporting talent.” http://wapo.st/YQILwK

MEDIAWATCH – “Doug Feaver named The Washington Post’s first reader representative” – Post release: “He will work closely with Alison Coglianese, named assistant reader representative, and both will contribute to the reader representative blog. Feaver [has] spent his career as a reporter and editor at The Post on the Business, National and Metro staffs. ... [H]e worked at The Post’s digital publishing arm, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, as executive editor of washingtonpost.com ... He also anchored the dot.comments blog until 2009 which examined reader comments on Post stories and features. ‘Doug has had an impressive career in journalism and we are fortunate to have him back at The Post in this role,’ said Katharine Weymouth, Publisher of The Washington Post. ... Coglianese worked for the opinion pages editor at The Morning Call in Allentown, PA. She graduated from DeSales University in 2008 with a degree in political science and communication.” http://wapo.st/WytIh2

**A message from the Coalition for Medicare Choices: Seniors in Medicare Advantage got hit hard by deep cuts and new taxes in health reform. Now, CMS is proposing a new round of payment cuts. It's too much. Vulnerable seniors will pay more, get less and lose choices. According to a new report, "Virtually all of the 14.1 million Medicare beneficiaries are likely to be affected by these changes, either through increased premiums, reduced benefits, or plan exits from local markets." Take action now to stop the proposed new Medicare Advantage cuts. Learn more at www.medicarechoices.org. **